Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The policies advocated and proposed for countries are essentially structural reforms, and no one would deny structural problems which needed to be addressed were part of Europe's problem. The focus on making markets work, taking down barriers to entry and allowing networks throughout the EU to achieve advantages due to the scale of the market have been sensible strategies. People can rightly criticise and suggest that the budget should have been bigger if the aim was to drive a growth strategy. We know many countries do not want bigger budgets at European level and Europe can only operate in the areas in which member states permit it to do so. Europe will always be limited in this respect.

The structural reforms it sought to introduce are valid. This country was behind the times with regard to the welfare system. For years the OECD and the EU criticised Ireland for not having a more developmental welfare system, with more attention on activation and opportunity. Ours was a model steeped in the idea that one had to be idle to get support, and we needed to move to a model that was more driven by activation and development. This is what the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, has been trying to do, similarly to policies driven by corporate social responsibility. It is the same with skills. People criticised FÁS and perhaps it got fossilised in the boom times and needed to shift to be more relevant. These are the policies being pushed. There is no doubt the policies being advocated are worthwhile. They are also a spur to change.

Over time the semester process will probably have greater force as an obligation to act on country-specific recommendations that might be introduced. At present it is moral pressure but over time, if certain countries fall out of kilter with regard to some of the bigger indicators, these policies will take the force of obligations, as they were when we were in the troika process. In response to the crisis we see more vigorous pursuit of sensible economic policy and it is gradually filtering down from broad fiscal demands to ensure other structural parts of policy instruments work effectively. This is here to stay, and we will be subject to more scrutiny on how well we are doing. This is the nature of the process.